Back during 1946, Wally Johnson started to create the markets for both the scaffold towers and aerial work platforms all by himself. He did this by establishing a business that was referred to as UpRight. Mr. Wally Johnson was a very gifted mechanical engineer who hailed from Berkeley, California. He stumbled upon access machinery when he started looking for a a way to paint his home.
While Mr. Johnson was embarking on his house painting project, he had a futile search for scaffolding which could deal with the uneven ground which surrounded his home. After being very unsatisfied with his choices, he decided to design his very own aluminum scaffold tower along with adjustable legs.
The Snorkel Company was also founded the very same year within St. Joseph, Missouri. This small company helped to transform the new elevating boom lift. The machinery was produced for firefighting and rescue work. In less than 2 decades, the technology had developed into self-propelled boom lifts.
The first self-propelled lift was sold by Snorkel during 1977. This particular product line did not take long to become the company's main business.
Wallace Johnson quickly catapulted to the top of the industry with his new scaffold. After he had attained this field, he decided to start all over and invent the world's very first self-propelled aerial lift.
Mr. Johnson during the year 1972, opened a factory within Selma, where he produced the "Flying Carpet" scissor lift. After this new and exciting equipment exploded onto the marketplace, the innovative product soon out-ranked the scaffolding component as the company`s main source of income.
In 1980, Wallace Johnson passed away, while the company, UpRight Inc. was sold at that time too. Mr Johnson's inventive and pioneering spirit did continue to live on. In the year 1994, UpRight launched the first micro-scissor in the world. They went on to pioneer the TM12, which is the self-propelled mast lift.